Work Text:
The grass is high enough to brush their knees, wet with morning dew. Birds scatter from the trees as the first Nevrons crash into the field, dragging the smell of rust and rot with them. Their armor groans like old doors when they move, their eyes burning dull red in the shadow of their helmets.
“Three on the left, two coming straight for us,” Sciel barks, swinging her scythe in a clean arc that slices the tall grass down in front of her. She looks back once at the others, grins. “I’ll take the eager ones.”
“You always take the eager ones,” Maelle mutters, summoning her rapier with a flourish. Her face is pale with nerves, but her grip is steady. She plants herself between two mossy boulders where she can control the angle. “Don’t let them circle us.”
Noco squeaks from behind the biggest stone, little wooden limbs flailing as he bounces up and down to peek over it. “I can fight! I can help!”
“You stay there,” Monoco rumbles, bell-staff humming as he plants it in the earth with a solid thunk. He doesn’t turn his mask-face toward his son, but the command in his voice is absolute.
“Aw, but Papa—!”
“Noco,” Monoco says again, and that ends it. Though, that doesn’t stop Noco from pouting. To be expected from a child.
The Nevrons are on them before more can be said. One swings a chipped cleaver toward Sciel, who meets it with her scythe shaft and twists, disarming it in a spray of sparks. She laughs, breathless and sharp. “You’ll have to do better than that!”
Verso is already in motion, darting past her shoulder to meet another. He fights like water slipping between cracks, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, weaving in and out of the Nevron’s swings. His dagger lodges between a joint; his sword slashes upward. “Monoco, you’re lagging behind!” he shouts over his shoulder.
Monoco doesn’t dignify it with words at first. He swings the bell-staff in a wide arc, the tone of its ringing carrying strangely through the field. The vibration stuns a Nevron mid-step, making it stagger. He follows by transforming into a Stalact and landing a brutal strike to its chestplate that dents the metal inward with his sharp icicle snout.
“Lagging?” Monoco says at last once he turns back to normal, his voice like gravel shifting. “You’ll be dead before me.”
“Not a chance,” Verso shoots back, ducking under a rusty halberd and stabbing his dagger into the Nevron’s exposed thigh. “You hit hard, sure, but you’re slower than—”
“Boys!” Lune’s voice cuts sharp over the clamor. She’s standing at the edge of the skirmish, fingers alive with weaving sigils. Lightning crackles between her palms. “This is not the time to measure egos!”
“Tell him that!” Verso calls.
“Tell yourself that,” Monoco replies flatly, spinning his staff to block a blow that would’ve split his side.
Lune scowls, and then with a sharp motion she looses her spell — arcs of white fire streak across the grass, catching two Nevrons square in the chest. They shriek as their armor glows red-hot. “Maybe I’ll let them stab you both so you’ll stop competing!”
Maelle, locked in a dance with her own opponent, can’t help but laugh despite herself. She lunges, rapier sliding past a visor and finding the soft tissue within. “If they stab each other first, we save time!”
Sciel swings her scythe in a low sweep that takes a Nevron’s legs out from under it. She stomps on its chestplate and drives the blade down. “Just focus on fighting! You’re going to get yourselves killed with all this nonsense.”
Behind the boulder, Noco hops again, fists balled in excitement. “Mama Sciel’s winning! Papa’s winning! Uncle Verso’s…uh…trying!”
“I heard that!” Verso snaps, though he’s grinning as he ducks another wild swing.
The field is chaos — metal shrieks, grass burns, the ground shakes with Monoco’s strikes and Lune’s magic. But the rhythm of the group is undeniable: Maelle’s precise lunges pin down stragglers; Sciel keeps the largest threats at bay with her sweeping reach; Verso exploits every opening with quicksilver cruelty; Lune scolds them while weaving destruction; and Monoco, steady as stone, anchors their line.
“Don’t let them flank!” Lune orders.
“You always say that,” Maelle says, darting forward again, her ponytail a red flag flashing behind her.
“That’s because you never listen,” Lune fires back.
Verso appears at her side like a shadow, parrying a jagged blade with his sword and slamming his dagger into the next Nevron’s throat. He flashes Lune a grin. “Well, she does get results.”
“Results?!” Lune’s voice crackles with restrained frustration. “She nearly got herself gutted last time we tried this!”
“Hit ‘em again! Smash ‘em, Papa!” Noco continues to shout.
Monoco chuckles low. His bell-staff rings once — a low, resonant chime that makes the air vibrate. He sweeps the staff in a brutal arc, and the sheer weight of it sends a Nevron crashing into a tree, bones splintering on impact. The sound makes even the Nevrons hesitate for half a breath.
“Ugh, that sound,” Maelle groans, stabbing another enemy through the ribs. “Always makes my teeth feel like they’re rattling loose!”
“It unsettles them too,” Verso quips, ducking beneath another swing. He drives his sword into the creature’s knee and pulls it free in one smooth motion. “So consider it an equal-opportunity annoyance.”
Sciel hooks her scythe around a Nevron’s arm, wrenches it forward, and plants a boot in its chest to send it sprawling. “Less complaining, more killing!”
“I am killing!” Maelle snaps, her face flushed with adrenaline.
Monoco barrels into another with the weight of a landslide in the form of a Chalier.
“Don’t slow down, old tree,” Verso calls, flashing a grin. “You’ll lose track of the body count.”
Monoco growls deep — a sound like stone grinding. He slams his staff down on a Nevron’s skull with finality. “That’s three,” he rumbles.
“Four,” Verso says back, already twirling his dagger. “If you’re counting properly.”
Lune huffs from the backline, flinging a burst of Chroma that explodes in a flare of pale fire, sending two Nevrons reeling. “Really? Really? We’re in the middle of battle and you two are arguing over numbers like children?”
“Competition sharpens the blade,” Verso retorts, parrying another strike.
“It also dulls the brain!” Lune snaps, eyes sharp as she whips another spell into being.
Sciel cuts through the bickering with a roar, scythe splitting the air in a brutal cleave. “Save the dick measuring for later! Or I’ll beat you both to the prize myself!”
Meanwhile, Noco bounces, little wooden limbs waving. “Papa! Papa! Hit harder!” he squeaks in his high, splintery voice. “Show Uncle Verso you’re better!”
Monoco chuckles, a smirk in his voice. “I shall.”
The ground trembles as Monoco slams his staff down, bell ringing again — deeper, louder this time. Then his wooden form shifts, pieces sliding and clicking into new places until he looms as a hulking Nevron-shape himself, spikes of wood bristling along his arms. The real Nevrons falter, confused, before Monoco crashes into them with raw, crushing force.
“Papa’s big now!” Noco squeals from the edge of the fight, clapping. “Go, go, go!”
Verso ducks as a Nevron’s weapon whistles past his head, eyes narrowing. “If we survive this, I’m teaching that kid how to count properly. He thinks everything is ‘go go go.’”
The group holds their rhythm—Sciel’s scythe whistling, Lune’s magic flashing, Verso and Monoco competing stroke for stroke—but Maelle suddenly finds herself cut off.
A figure glides into her path.
At first glance, it looks almost human—a womanly silhouette, long-limbed and graceful—but the closer Maelle looks, the more wrongness she sees. One half of the Danseuse’s body glitters with brittle ice, skin and muscle sculpted sharp as glass; the other half is molten, magma flowing in veins under blistered flesh, glowing faint with inner fire. Steam curls where the halves meet, rolling off her in waves. She twirls with balletic grace, the earth hissing beneath every step.
Maelle grips her rapier tighter, heart hammering. “You’re mine, then,” she whispers to herself, steadying her stance.
The Danseuse lunges, not with brute force but with precision—each movement as calculated as a pirouette. Her flaming arm slices through the air, the heat singeing Maelle’s cheek as she dodges and ripostes. The rapier finds the Nevron’s shoulder, but the blade hisses uselessly against searing magma. Maelle withdraws instantly, pivoting to press toward the ice side instead.
Steel meets frost. This time, her strike chips away brittle shards that scatter across the grass like diamonds.
The Danseuse doesn’t flinch. She spins.
Her leg sweeps wide, and Maelle barely throws herself back in time, the grass beneath her burning where the magma foot passed. She tries to keep her breath steady, tries to recall all of Lune’s lectures about pace, about not rushing, but the Nevron is fast—too fast. Every movement is a dance, every strike a step in a rhythm Maelle can’t quite follow.
She parries high, thrusts low, feints right—her rapier flicks like lightning. For a moment she thinks she’s holding her own, the Danseuse’s frozen forearm cracking with her strikes.
Then, the Nevron changes tempo.
A sudden, brutal kick arcs in from the side. Maelle tries to block, too slow—
CRACK.
The Danseuse’s heel slams square into her back, just beneath her ribs. White-hot pain detonates through her kidney, ripping the breath from her lungs. Maelle staggers forward with a strangled cry, her rapier tumbling from numb fingers.
She doubles over instantly, arms wrapping around herself as if that could shield her from the agony tearing through her side. Her throat convulses, bile rising sharp and bitter. She vomits onto the grass, body heaving violently.
Her knees buckle. She collapses onto all fours, trembling, the world narrowing to the fire in her flank. Her chest convulses, trying to pull in air, but each breath feels wrong—shallow, ragged, incomplete.
“Maelle!” Sciel’s voice rings out somewhere across the field, but it’s muffled, like she’s underwater.
She can’t answer. She can’t even scream. All she can do is clutch her side, shaking, the pain spreading like shards of glass every time her diaphragm twitches. Out of every wound she’s taken—slashes, bruises, burns—this is the one that breaks her. It feels like her insides are splintering, like something essential is tearing apart.
The Danseuse doesn’t hesitate. She twirls again, aiming to strike while Maelle is down.
Through her blurred vision, Maelle sees the molten arc of its leg coming again and tries to roll away, but her body won’t listen. Her limbs are sluggish, useless against the agony radiating through her core.
The only thing that leaves her throat is a hoarse, gasping sob.
She can smell the flames as the molten foot slices through the air like a comet, heading straight for her face—
—but it doesn’t land.
A shadow cleaves through the steam, and Monoco’s staff slams into the Nevron’s side with the force of a falling tree. The bell rings once—low, resonant, almost mournful—and the Danseuse stumbles back. The crack of splintering ice echoes as Lune’s magic lashes forward in the same heartbeat, white-blue lightning exploding against the creature’s torso.
“Get away from her!” Sciel bellows, vaulting over a boulder and swinging her scythe in a clean, vicious arc.
The blade bites into the Danseuse’s neck.
The Nevron’s head snaps to the side but doesn’t detach—it simply cracks. Steam hisses from the wound, and the creature emits a shrill, shivering screech that pierces the field. It reels, flailing its magma limb toward Sciel, but Verso darts in before it can counter, driving both his blades deep into its midsection.
“Don’t you dare!” Monoco snarls at the same time, swinging his staff into the Nevron’s lower spine. “That’s our kid!”
The Danseuse staggers, falters. Its body freezes mid-step, balance faltering between its halves—one melting, one shattering. Then, with a final, eerie twirl, it collapses onto the grass. The ice splinters, the magma cools, and the Nevron falls still, its body crumbling into motes of faint, glowing dust.
Silence follows.
For a moment, the only sound is the ringing echo of Monoco’s bell and the whisper of wind through the grass.
Then:
A groan.
A long, drawn-out, pitiful groooaaan.
Everyone turns.Maelle lies face-down in the grass, one hand clutched protectively at her side, the other stretched limply toward her fallen rapier. She’s still half-curled from the pain, dirt smeared across her cheek, a thin trail of bile beside her where she’d been sick.
“Oooohhhhhh my kiiidneyyyyy…” she moans, voice thick and ragged, but somehow whiny all the same.
Sciel drops her scythe immediately and rushes over, sliding to her knees beside her. “Oh, sweetheart— let me see, let me see, what happened?”
Maelle doesn’t move, just lets out another groan that could probably raise the dead. “She—kicked—me—in the back—and I saw God, Sciel—”
“That was not God,” Verso says, sheathing his blades and crouching nearby. “That was your kidney filing for retirement.”
Lune gives him a flat look as she approaches, sparks still flickering faintly on her fingertips. “You’re not helping.”
“I am helping,” Verso insists. “I’m offering moral support through humor.”
“She doesn’t need moral support,” Lune says dryly, “she needs a compress and bed rest.”
Maelle makes a weak, wheezy noise. “She needs a new kidney.”
That earns her a strangled snort from Sciel, who’s gently trying to roll her onto her side. “Easy, easy, don’t move too fast. You’re probably bruised pretty bad.”
“I felt my soul leave my body,” Maelle croaks. “I saw it wave goodbye.”
Monoco looms nearby, silent as ever, his mask tilted downward in inspection. He doesn’t move until Maelle lets out another dramatic groan—at which point he bluntly reaches down, grabs her under the arms, and lifts her into a sitting position.
Maelle gasps sharply, hissing through her teeth. “Ow ow ow ow ow ow—!”
Monoco tilts his head. “Better?”
“No!”
“Hmm.”
Verso nearly doubles over laughing. “That’s one way to check for internal damage.”
Lune smacks his shoulder. “She’s not a sack of flour, Verso! Monoco, please—set her down gently.”
Monoco obeys with surprising delicacy this time, settling Maelle into Sciel’s lap like a doll made of glass. The girl sags, face pale and pinched.
Noco finally scampers over, flailing a big stick. “YAAAARRRRGGGGG!!!” He starts to aggressively hit the Danseuse’s corpse over and over and over again. “TAKE THAT! AND THAT! AND THAT! AND THAT!”
Finally, he tires himself out. “I did it!” he declares.
Monoco rubs his son’s head. “Yes, you did.”
“What would we do without you, Noco?” Verso says, grinning.
Noco spins around to Maelle’s shuddering form. “What’s wrong?”
“Dying,” Maelle wheezes.
Sciel smiles faintly. “She’s alright, Noco. Just a little sore. She got kicked pretty hard.”
Maelle groans again, eyes squeezed shut. “A little sore? I’m dying. I’m ascending. Tell Verso I forgive him for stealing my sandwich.”
Verso stifles another laugh. “She’s fine. Dramatic, but fine.”
Lune crouches, resting a gentle hand on Maelle’s forehead. “She’s running a bit hot from the exertion, but her pulse is steady. She’ll live.”
“I’d rather not,” Maelle mumbles. “Just—leave me here. Let the grass take me.”
“The grass doesn’t want you,” Verso mutters.
Sciel swats him without looking. “You hush.”
Lune sighs, shaking her head, though there’s a faint curve to her lips. “She needs rest. And water. And perhaps a touch less melodrama.”
“I heard that,” Maelle mumbles into Sciel’s lap.
“You were supposed to,” Lune replies.
Noco tugs gently at Maelle’s sleeve. “Do you need some of my wares, Maelle? Some of them can heal!”
“None of them do,” Monoco says flatly.
“Nuh uh!” Noco argues. “Maybe they do!”
Maelle forces a weak laugh that sounds more like a cough. “Thanks, Noco. I think I just need…to lie here forever.”
Verso smirks. “We’ll build you a statue.”
Sciel chuckles softly, brushing damp hair from Maelle’s forehead. “No statues. Just rest. You did well, sweet girl.”
Maelle’s lips twitch upward into a faint, woozy smile. “Yeah? Even though I—got obliterated?”
“Especially because of that,” Sciel says warmly. “You fought her longer than any of us could’ve.”
“...Cool,” Maelle murmurs, eyes fluttering shut. “I’m the bravest kidney patient on the Continent.”
Verso grins. “Oh, I’m never letting you live that down.”
“You call me that again,” Maelle mutters, voice thick with exhaustion, “and I’ll stab your kidney and we’ll match.”
Lune sighs, standing and rubbing her temples. “Wonderful. They’re both impossible.”
Monoco adjusts his grip on his staff. “At least they’re alive.”
“Barely,” Sciel murmurs fondly.
As the others start gathering their things and checking the perimeter, Maelle remains in Sciel’s lap, groaning softly every few minutes for dramatic effect. Noco sits beside her, holding her hand like it might fall off if he lets go.
When the wind passes through the field again, it carries laughter with it—Lune’s exasperated, Verso’s smug, Sciel’s warm, Noco’s high-pitched—and even Monoco’s low, bell-like chuckle.
And over it all, Maelle’s pitiful, muffled voice:
“My kidney still hurts.”
Later that night, after Maelle shuffled off to go to the bathroom, a shrill voice erupts from the woods.
“I’M PEEING BLOOD!!!!!”